{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1915", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 1915, "subject": "Wolfe apologetics", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "1999-11-03T21:23:15+00:00", "last": "1999-11-05T22:19:55+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Ouroboros", "address": "ottofaij at yahoo.com" }, "date": "1999-11-03T21:23:15+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Wolfe apologetics", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "<<<<[Quantum tunneling being the theory behind Father\nInire's mirrors and how Severian brings the New\nSun]still leaves too much unexplained. How can QT\nexplain the New Sun being attached to Severian, or\nbeing\n\"birthed\" by an act of intercourse?>>>>>\n\nOne of the things that brings me back to the New Sun\nbooks again and again is the conviction (based on my\nexperience with the story til now) that Wolfe has a\nrational explanation for even the most miraculous\nhappenings. If Severian *did* pull a butterfly out of\na rainbow, you can bet Wolfe would have a rational\nexplanation for it.\n\nWhat I meant by QT being how Severian brings the New\nSun is that that is how the Sun suddenly appears in\nthe center of Urth's orbit out of wherever. \n\nBTW: I don't think I mentioned before that QT could\n(theoretically) be used for time travel as surely as\nfor interstellar travel and that's how Severian does\nit.\n\nAs for how the Sun is attached to Severian, I think I\nrecall someone telling Severian (I can't place the\nquote) that the Concilliator does not just *bring* the\nNew Sun, he *is* the New Sun. Here's a possible\nrationalization for Severian's connection to the Sun\nand and how Severian and Apheta making love could\nbring it:\n\nSeverian IS the fountain. Relative to the story, he\nhasn't become it yet, but he will. At the time\nSeverian is getting it on, other things are happening\nin the Universe that tell Severian (now the New Sun)\nwhat the earlier Severian is doing and that now is the\ntime to become the New Sun and go to Urth. Therefore\nSeverian having sex \"miraculously\" brings the New Sun\nthe same way that the Concilliator \"miraculously\"\nprophesies the future of Typhon and the future\nAutarchs. \n\nNice neat rationalization. Now all I have to do is\n*prove* it. \n\n<<<>>>>\n\nI don't think this is how Wolfe said the alzabo got\nthe memories. I don't think he explained it in detail\nat all, but I never imagined that if the alzabo had\nbitten of Severian's hand he would have gotten all his\nmemories. I assumed it would have to eat the brain.\nNow one can argue that such a beast or adaptation is\nscientifically improbable, but the explanation is not\nirrational.\n\nOk. There. Everything tidily explained. ;-)\n\n- Ouroboros" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Damien Broderick", "address": "d.broderick at english.unimelb.edu.au" }, "date": "1999-11-04T16:45:07+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Wolfe apologetics", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "At 09:23 PM 3/11/99 -0800,Ouroboros wrote something hard to swallow:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Severian IS the fountain. Relative to the story, he\nhasn't become it yet, but he will. At the time\nSeverian is getting it on, other things are happening\nin the Universe that tell Severian (now the New Sun)\nwhat the earlier Severian is doing and that now is the\ntime to become the New Sun and go to Urth." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Hmm. So Sev is a kind of eidolon or entelechy of the future cosmos entire,\na sort of temporally extended Tiplerian Omega Point deity. [I refer to\nFrank J. Tipler's outrageous skiffyoid eschatology, now holed by the\ndisovery that the universe is expanding faster rather than slower.] Cute.\nI'll buy that. \n\nDamien Broderick\n\n(In fact - *blush* - I did it already in THE JUDAS MANDALA, in 1982.)" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jim Henley", "address": "jlhenley at erols.com" }, "date": "1999-11-05T22:19:55+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) Wolfe apologetics", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "-----Original Message-----\nFrom: urth-errors at lists.best.com [mailto:urth-errors at lists.best.com]On\nBehalf Of Ouroboros\n\n<<<>>>>\n\nI don't think this is how Wolfe said the alzabo got\nthe memories." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Not a single cell. You needed \"a mouthful,\" which is quite a lot of cells.\nAnd there was a time the \"memory RNA\" concept was taken quite seriously. I\ngather from discussion here that it has since been rejected, but at the\ntime BOTNS was being written it was a plausible speculation. So it was\ngobbledygook on Wolfe's part only if some of those Urth-style ripples in\nthe ocean of time happened to wash his way before they hit everyone else.\n\nBest,\n\n\nJim\n *****************************************\nWhat if we only get what we deserve?\n Somehow, I couldn't quite summon the nerve\"\n -- Costello/Bacharach" } ] } ] }